"Complete your story, Dubravnik. It interests me. I shall be glad indeed to hear it, finding as I now do, that I have permitted myself to fall in love with a professional spy."
"I HAVE PERMITTED MYSELF TO FALL IN LOVE WITH A PROFESSIONAL SPY"
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God! how her tone hurt me! How the words she uttered pierced me! How the contemptuous scorn in her voice and manner, tore to shreds the fabric of a beatific existence I had created in my imagination! A moment ago, confident of her love, her admiration, and her esteem, I saw now, when it was too late, that the very announcement of my profession had destroyed it, with a stroke as deadly as the knife of an assassin in the heart of his victim.
And I understood, also, why my statement should have had such an effect upon her. Reared as she had been, in the society of St. Petersburg; taught from her cradle to hate and despise, as well as to fear, a spy; educated in utter abhorrence of everything that pertains to that class, at the Russian capital, she could look upon me, now, only with horror and loathing. I was that thing she had most despised. I was that monstrosity of creation, which, calling itself a man, was, according to Zara's lights, without principal, honor, integrity, or manhood.
I stood before her, not with bowed head, as perhaps I might have done had my true feelings been expressed, but with bowed and stricken heart, suddenly aware that I had gained the glory of her love only to lose it, and in a manner which carried with it no redress.
"I have completed an organization of men, Zara," I went on, calmly, and in a tone which I endeavored to render as monotonous as possible, "that has for its purpose the undoing of nihilism, as it is now practiced. That body of men extends, in its ramifications, throughout St. Petersburg, and even to other cities of Russia. Its purpose, primarily, is not to send conspirators to Siberia to suffer exile there, with all the other horrors that go with it, but to——"
"Enough!" she interrupted me. "I have heard quite enough, Dubravnik! What you say to me now, is meaningless twaddle. You are like all the others who pit themselves against the silent body of men and women who are engaged in seeking the freedom of their country. If you knew anything of the horrors of Siberia, to which you so glibly refer, you would shudder when you mention them, and you would fly with horror from any act of your own that might commit a person to Siberia, and exile."
She came half-way around the table, and stood facing me, somewhat nearer. "If you had taken a journey through Siberia before you offered your services to the czar, you would have strangled yourself, or have cut out your tongue, rather than have gone to him with any such dastardly proposition as you confess yourself to have fathered. You prate of stultifying yourself by taking the oath of nihilism, and repudiating your word to Alexander. You! You! A Professional spy!" She threw back her head and laughed aloud, not with glee, but with utter derision of spirit, and I shrank from the sound of it as I might have done from a blow in the face.
Again she was a creature of moods and impulses. Again the wild Tartar blood, leaping in her veins, controlled her. With a sudden move she came nearer to me, and bending forward, looked into my face intently, as if searching for something which had hitherto escaped her notice.